ABSTRACT
As an anthropologist, Donald Jacobs devoted his career to understanding and explaining the benefits and burdens of culture—the ethnic culture of his Germanic Mennonite and Lutheran ancestors; the religious culture of the conservative Lancaster Mennonite Conference in Pennsylvania; the “objective” and relativistic culture of academia; and the African culture of his students, parishioners, and peers in the East African Revival and the Tanzania Mennonite Church. Working as a missionary, Jacobs challenged the strictures of a provincial Mennonite community that equated culture with faith, but he also recognized that without being deeply rooted in culture, faith would not flourish. Relying heavily on Donald Jacobs’ memoir, What A Life!, this chapter chronicles the journey of an individual whose mind and heart occupied at least two worlds. Jacobs engaged in an ongoing analysis of the social and religious values of the communities in which he lived. Using an anthropological term, he was a participant-observer, one who studies culture from the vantage point of an insider but with the analytical tools of an outsider.
